Man Shot By Police As He Stabbed Girlfriend Sentenced To More Than 23 Years In Prison

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — A Brooklyn man who brutally beat and stabbed his ex-girlfriend before he was shot by police has been sentenced to 23.5 years in prison, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Brian Quattrocchi, 39, was convicted in March of attempted murder and kidnapping in the January 2015 assault. Quattrocchi attacked his ex-girlfriend inside her Lower East Side apartment twice, the second time sending her to the hospital, according to Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance said.

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First, Quattrocchi went to the woman's apartment, and, when she asked him to leave, hit her so forcefully that he split her lip, the New York Times reported at the time.

Just 10 days later Quattrocchi returned. Prosecutors say that Quattrocchi hit the woman and knocked her to the ground, before repeatedly kicking her prone body. When the woman managed to escape to a different room in the apartment, Quattrocchi barricaded the door against responding police officers and followed the woman into a bathroom with a knife. After officers broke down the door, Quattrocchi threatened both police and the woman with the knife before stabbing his ex-girlfriend repeatedly in her chest until he was shot by police, prosecutors proved at trial.

Both Quattrocchi and the woman were treated for their injuries and survived.

Police said they had tried to arrest Quattrocchi after he split the woman's lip, but were unable to locate him until they responded to the second attack, the Times reported.

"For the second time this week, justice has been served in a brutal domestic violence assault case. Sadly, it came too late for one of the victims," Vance said in a statement, referring to a man found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend in Harlem. "Brian Quattrocchi’s years of inflicting physical, mental, and emotional abuse on his ex-girlfriend culminated in this vicious and terrifying attack. It easily could have turned fatal, if not for the bravery of the heroic responding NYPD officers."

In a report released last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said that domestic violence accounted for one in every five homicides and two in every five assaults citywide.

Lead image via Shutterstock.